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Saturday, 4 January 2014

If you have ever been looking
for a headset that will be compatible with both your console, be it either XBOX
360 or PS3, or even both, and your PC, you probably know how hard it is to find
one of them that is also comfortable and offers a good audio quality. Well,
look no more as Turtle Beach solves your problem with its new release, the Ear
Force PX22. As always before buying the actual product, we recommend trying it
out yourself in one of the stores.

The Box

The package of said headset is
something you would expect to see when buying gaming gear. On the front you got
a bit of specification, main features, MLG logo, model name and a big picture
of the actual headphones. The back contains of a write down of features, what
the package contains, and the specification. On the side, you’ve got in-line
amp guide. Before you can open the actual box, you got to slid the cover off,
and only then you may actually open it. The first thing you is the
documentation with a quick start guide, which includes additional stickers, but
also cables and accessories hidden in a pretty stylish package. When you remove
the next cover, you see the actual product, but also the inline amp, which
surprisingly is shipped not connected to the headphones.

The Specification

In audio business, the specification
may not be so important, but it’s always a good thing to include one. In case
you had any doubts earlier, the headphones are of closed build. That means,
little sound will be getting in the headphones and little sound will be getting
out, resulting in you not being able to hear your surroundings. The connection
type is USB, as could be expected by headphone enthusiasms, due to the
microphone, which would require 2 jacks in order to work, if 3.5 plug was the
connection type of choice. We got 1 driver per each ear, each one being 50mm in
diameter, which is rather big, but you don’t have to worry about it that much –
it fits perfectly, which we’ve covered later in the review!

The Comfort

Very important aspect of the
gaming headset is the actual comfort. If you’re planning to spend long hours
playing Call of Duty in front of your TV, you don’t want the pleasure being
stopped by hurting ears from ear pads or the tip of your head from bad headband
of the headset. Nothing of these will happen when your order PX22, but you have
to realize they won’t be as comfortable as Razer Tiamar or SteelSeries Sibera
V2. Nevertheless, you shouldn’t feel any discomfort while using this headset.

The Features

Main feature of those headphones
is no doubt the inline controller, which seem to be a good move on the Turtle
Beach side. It allows you to control volume, bass, treble and even mute your
microphone on the go. In addition, it features game and chat volume controls,
an Xbox 360 chat input and mobile phone connector. It is definitely a cut above
average. The cable is made out of vinyl sheath and is quite long, which has to
be noted. The microphone itself is ultra flexible and did well in our tests of
voice chat, Skype calls or Teamspeak.

The Audio

Equipped with one of the bigger
drivers of 50mm, they produce just a fine sound. They also have the stereo type
of sound, which isn’t the most desired in gaming gear, because it doesn’t such
a fine positioning in online FPS games as Dolby Surround, but thanks to Turtle
Beach engineers you can still know where that bullet came from. The PX22
deliver a great audio experience on whatever you plug them into, let it be PC,
PS3, Xbox 360 or even your phone. They sound crisp and clear and you hear the
nice “thump” of the bass when you expect it. However, you have to keep in mind
that those aren’t $300 Hi-Fi audiophile headphones, but that’s probably not
something you need when you order PX 22.

The Design

Everything comes at the expense,
and while Turtle Beach EarForce PX22 delivers great comfort and sound, the
materials used had to suffer on this. They feel light, flimsy and give you the
impression they could break easily every time you use it. This won’t probably
bother you at all because they were designed rather for home use, but given the
mobile phone compatibility, it sucks that you probably won’t go out in public.

The Conclusion

All in all, for the 70$, you get
pretty good audio quality with an average comfort, but also cheap materials. If
you’re looking for your first gaming headset, I definitely recommend this. If
you’re however looking for something more durable, you should rather look at
something at higher price range.

Bitcoin
popularity has seen a huge rise in past 2 months, mainly due to the price jump
which resulted due to China buying huge amount of the first crypto currency.
More and more places start to accept bitcoins as a legit payment method,
alongside credit cards, cash and PayPal – it has relatively small transaction
fees, compared to 2-3% of CC processors, which adds to the incentive. The price
is oscillating at the level of 800 USD at the moment, seeing a huge rise since
six months ago, when I was barely worth 150$.

A bit of history first. 3rd
January 2009 is the date of introduction of the Bitcoin protocol, done by
pseudonymous developer Satoshi Nakamoto. At first, it has been widely
recognized as something that criminals used. The famous Silk Road used it as
primary currency, but it has been shutdown in 2013 by FBI, who seized what is
now estimated to be worth 28.5 million USD of bitcoins. The start of BTC was
marked with early technical problems, for example in 2009 an exploit existed,
that allowed the creation of unlimited bitcoins. In relation to other
currencies, BTC has appreciated rapidly. In 2011, first boom happened, when the
value of one coin went from 30 cents to a bit over 30 dollars, then dropped
back to 2$.

One of the reasons Bitcoin is
gaining popularity is because of all the fuss media has made in the last
months, along with the price jump. Ordinary people, who haven’t heard about it
before, suddenly are told that BTC is semi-viable alternative to Euro our British
Pound. This contributes to the attention the crypto currency gets, therefore
resulting in rise of the value.

Another reason is because you
don’t even have to work to gain the currency. All you have to do is setup your
computer to “mine” the coins – there’s zero effort in doing that, and we’ll
cover how to do so in future article. Of course, you won’t be gaining 100$ per
hour out of nowhere – if you want to start mining seriously, you will need to
invest in GPUs suitable to mine.

Bitcoin is also popular thanks
due to the anonymity it provides, while maintaining platform secure enough to
prevent chargebacks or frauds. Of course, the platform could be a victim of a
hacker attack, but those are pretty rare and success of those depends on how
the user secures their own wallet.

All in all, BTC is gaining
popularity because it’s a good alternative to real-world currencies, which are
controlled by huge institutions and banks. If only more shops and services
supported payments in bitcoins!